The foundation of Tibetan Buddhism is ‘lamaism,’ and thus lamas teach that a student must never leave the teacher, whether a Tibetan or a Westerner, since the relationship is based on the sociopathic guru/disciple principle. This relationship is unique to Tibetan Buddhism. Once you are a student of a Tibetan lama (born into the lineage in a Tibetan family, or ensnared as a Westerner through the ‘spiritual net’ that is sent out by Tibetan lamas – including the Dalai Lama), the student is supposed to follow the teacher throughout all time, lifetime after lifetime, to serve them, until they reach enlightenment. Enlightenment, though, can take countless lifetimes to achieve, and not everyone will achieve enlightenment, according to the teachings of Tibetan Buddhism. Achieving enlightenment is taught by Tibetan lamas to be a complicated system, with many prerequisites and pitfalls. One prerequisite, interestingly enough, is the ‘good fortune’ of being born a male Tibetan lama! Women are told to pray to be reborn in a male body in their next life, for only in a man’s body can they attain full enlightenment.

The previous Kalu ‘Rinpoche,’ (1905-1989) one of the first Tibetan lamas to come to the West, told his Western students that they were the reincarnation of the ants he fed from the food on his plate during his first three-year retreat. Because he fed these ants, they had the ‘good karma’ to reincarnate as his Western students.

Many of his Western students actually felt special because of this!

True to form, though, the elderly Kalu (65 years old in 1970, when he began teaching in Europe and America) was accused of trolling his Western students for women to be sexual consorts for his tantric practices. Many accounts of sexual abuse were reported by his female students, who were wooed with lies of the specialness and holiness that would be conferred upon them by the tantric sex, and they should ‘prove’ their faith and obedience to the lama by being one of his consorts, only to be traumatized and ultimately shamed and silenced by the lama and by the Tibetan Buddhist community with threats of madness, trouble or death if they spoke out. June Campbell, a former student of Kalu, recounts the abuse she suffered at his hands in her book, Traveler in Space, (traveler in space is a translation of the Tibetan word dakini, or woman used by a lama for sex), published in 1996.

It has been observed that many – too many to count – Western former students of various Tibetan lamas have been seriously harmed, spiritually, psychologically, physically and economically. Through the mind-control process directed at the students while they are with the teacher, many emotions, thoughts and false beliefs are planted in their minds. Once a student has found the strength to leave a harmful teacher, many of them transfer to other Tibetan lamas, seeking spiritual and physical protection from their former teacher(s). This protection comes with a price, however, as the new teacher will usually use mind-control and manipulation on these new students.